1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a biological-specimen observation apparatus.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2007-333870 and 2008-162127, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
A known observation apparatus in the related art is capable of both observation of the distribution of a fluorescent material in a specimen and acquisition of clear, highly quantitative images of the fluorescent material by switching between an objective lens and an image-forming lens to achieve a broad range of magnification (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2005-316362).
Furthermore, a known image acquisition apparatus in the related art displays the distribution of a fluorescent material in a specimen by obtaining and storing a bright field image and a luminous image and automatically generating an image in which the two images are superimposed (for example, refer to Japanese Translation of PCT International Application, Publication No. 2003-536052).
Another known observation apparatus performs time-series contrast observation of a fluorescence image that contains an entire specimen (for example, refer to U.S. Pat. No. 5,650,135).
However, the observation apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2005-316362 has a disadvantage of being unable to associate an image showing the distribution of a fluorescent material and a clear, highly quantitative image of the fluorescent material with each other.
The image acquisition apparatuses disclosed in Japanese Translation of PCT International Application, Publication No. 2003-536052 and the observation apparatuses disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,650,135 have a disadvantage of being unable to perform clear, highly quantitative fluorescence observation because they observe a specimen using a macroimage in which an entire specimen is acquired.